Five Business Lessons From an Immigrant Investor
In a live talk introduced by Richard C. Wilson, Bharat shares business lessons with an audience.
Richard C. Wilson introduces Bharat, who shares lessons from building businesses after immigrating to the United States. Bharat presents the talk as personal experience, then discusses decisions around managing people, funding a business, paying the founder and setting an exit plan.
In this video: Richard C. Wilson (Founder of the Family Office Club), Bharat (Guest speaker)
What they said
- Bharat on missed deals. Bharat says to relax and accept that missed deals are part of investing. In his view, trying to make up for lost time can lead to mistakes.
- Bharat on delegation and accountability. Bharat says delegating a task without accountability does not work. He asks people to bring him their decision and reasoning, so they can take ownership instead of waiting for instructions.
- Bharat on setting a funding limit. Bharat recommends deciding in advance how much to commit and when to shut a business down. He says an organized shutdown is better than being forced to close after the money runs out.
- Bharat on founder pay. Bharat says a business should include the founder's salary. If it cannot support that pay, he advises working for someone else instead.
- Bharat on defining an exit. Bharat says to decide how a business will end before entering it. He also says to have a clear plan for what the business will do.
In their words
"the top 150 people in your life are going to decide what type of business deals you do"
"the best Mentor is somebody who tells you what not to do if the mentor has to tell you what to do you don't deserve it"
Why it matters if you are building or preserving great wealth
Bharat says he kept enough cash to close a real estate deal himself, which let him decline investor terms he didn't want. He says investors still supplied the money on his terms, and he kept the reserve in the bank.
From Richard's exclusive Billionaires.com interviews
Lessons from Richard C. Wilson's one-on-one interviews, as published on each interview page.
- Igor Olenicoff: Learn the business from the ground up. A job at a builders hardware store taught Olenicoff about building materials and techniques. It also built an affinity for real estate.
- Tony Robbins: Think like an owner. His biggest turning point was moving from operator to owner. An operator tries to supervise everything and cannot scale.
- Bobby Castro: Change the strategy to scale. Bobby says that to scale a business, everything has to change. He suggests asking whether the business is scalable, whether it offers a solution and whether it is disruptive.
See the data
Frequently asked questions
How did Bharat track delegated work?
He used Task in a Box, where he could turn an Outlook email into a task and keep updates attached to it.
How many employees did Bharat say worked in his company?
He described about 2,400 employees.
Sources
Quotes are copied from the video captions and checked against the transcript. Timestamps link to the moment in the video. General information only, not legal, tax or investment advice.